1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electronic commerce and more particularly to conducting an interactive offer and bid collection over a computer network. The present invention relates especially to access by guest members to online auctions and offering systems which allow the guest to view offered products and restricts the guests activities such that he or she may not actually participate in the bidding process.
2. Description of the Related Art
Prior to the advent of electronic auctioning over computer networks or electronic commerce, auctions were held in a group of gathered bidders with an auctioneer. As shown in FIG. 1, an auction (1) is conducted on behalf of a seller (2) by an auctioneer (4). The auctioneer receives a list of items to be sold and possibly a minimum and/or reserve price for those items. During the auction, a plurality of bidders (6) place bids (5) under the guidance and control of the auctioneer (4). In some cases, multiple bidders (9) may pool (8) their bids, and the pooled bids (7) are submitted as a single bid with a combined quantity to the auctioneer (4).
The auctioneer enforces the rules of the auction, such as minimum bid price and quantities, minimum bid incrementing from the previous bid for a new bid, and time limits for placing bids. Auction bidders are typically qualified as to their ability to complete the purchase should their bid be the winning bid prior to entering the auction room.
Many online auctioning systems such as “priceline.com” have become very popular for individuals and businesses to use to take advantage of auctions at which they cannot be physically present. Such e-commerce auctions or online auctions are usually conducted over a specified period of time of opening and closing for bids, and are typically conducted under one of several well-known sets of rules or models. These common models include “Dutch” auctions, progressive auctions, “Yankee” auctions, single-bid auction, sealed bid auctions, reserve auctions, and hybrids of these types of auctions.
However, most sales offering and bid systems conducted by manufacturers of goods or service providers are conducted under a different set of procedures and processes. Turning to FIG. 2, a typical trader and broker system for offering and accepting bids is shown (20). In such a business-to-business (“B2B”) offering and bidding process (20), a manufacturer or service provider (21) will notify one or more traders (24) of available products or services, quantities, and minimum acceptable bid values (22). The trader then provides offerings (23′) to one or more brokers (25), to which the brokers may respond with bids (23).
In some cases, bids may be accepted for either partial lots or whole lots of offered products. These offerings (23′) and the corresponding bids (23) are collected by the trader, and the trader (24) makes a decision of which bids to accept. The traders (24) subsequently respond to the manufacturer or service provider (21) with actual orders or purchases (22).
Although the B2B offering and bid acceptance process may be conducted similarly to an auction, it is not an auction in the strict sense in that the order fulfillment, or bid acceptance, process is conducted usually by the trader at his discretion. For example, under a typical auction process, the highest qualified bidder may be defined as the bid winner. However, in a B2B offering and bid collection system, the trader may favor the second or third highest bid over the highest bid for the fact that the broker placing the second or third highest bid has preferred business arrangements, such as a longer history of purchasing from the trader or a history of larger volume purchases with the trader.
Brokers typically buy on speculation, and sell to end users. Brokers may sell to multiple retailers of products or services, or they may represent a single large retailer of a product or service.
Traders are typically commissioned sales professionals, and the structure of their commissions may vary depending on the quantities and the commodities or category of products being sold.
According to industry terminology, “Reseller Master Agreements” usually govern what a broker may purchase, which are enforced by the individual traders. For example, a particular broker may only have rights to purchase given commodities or categories of products within a certain geographical zone or region as defined by his Reseller Master Agreement with the manufacturer or service provider.
Further, traders may be restricted to handling specific commodities or categories of products and also may be restricted to certain localities. For example, a trader may specialize in furniture from a particular manufacturer, and may not be authorized to handle carpets or other textiles from the same manufacturer. This trader's expertise in furniture allows him to focus his knowledge and understanding into the market place for furniture. A trader may also be restricted as to the locality or geographical region in which his brokers may purchase goods, such as Europe, North America, or even more specific such as a particular state or city.
Thus, a particular broker may receive offers from multiple traders who represent a particular manufacturer or service provider. For example, a broker that represents a chain of computer stores may receive computer memory offers from a first broker, software upgrade offers from a second broker, and peripheral offers from yet a third broker, all of whom represent the same manufacturer. In response, this broker may bid for products or services in different categories, and must submit those bids to different traders based on the traders' commodities or categories of products that each trader handles.
As such, it is desirable not to present information to the traders or brokers which is irrelevant to the products or commodities for which they are entitled to purchase under their Reseller Master Agreement. For example, certain brokers and traders may be associated with geographical regions which are not allowed to receive certain products or services from the manufacturer because of regulatory or export controls. Additionally, certain contractual restrictions between the manufacturer and the trader or other traders and other brokers may establish territorial boundaries regarding products and services handled by the brokers and traders. Further, even though a broker may be entitled to receive offers for a particular product or service, it may not be desirable to indicate to that broker the total quantity available from the manufacturer, as having this knowledge may not encourage the broker to place his highest possible bid for the product or service.
Therefore, the available online auctioning systems are not appropriate in such B2B offering and bid collection systems. First, the available online auctioning systems represent a full auction under which certain rules dictate which bids will be automatically accepted so the system provides offering of available quantities, bid collection, bid rule enforcement, bid fulfillment, and bid acceptance functions under the rules of the auction. But, as previously discussed, B2B offerings and bid collections are not executed under such strict rules. Further, the available online auction systems are particularly adapted to placement of orders by multiples of bidders or pooled bidders, and do not favor the traditional interaction between traders and brokers. And, most online auctioning systems provide information as to last top bid (“bid to beat”) and total quantities of goods available.
As such, the available online auction systems do not allow for the restriction and filtering of information which is conveyed from the offering party to the offered party to eliminate the presentation of information which is not relevant to the offered party's Reseller Master Agreement. This may not protect the confidentiality of total quantities available from the offering party, and may compromise the ability of the offering party to obtain the best possible bids for the goods offered.
The related application discloses a system and method which provides an online capability to conduct both auctions and business-to-business sales offerings. Under this system and method, each potential bidder is associated with a profile matrix or entitlement schema. The broker's profile or bidder's profile indicates which materials from the master list of available materials are to be presented to the broker or bidder. This system therefore allows each bidder or broker to access and review only materials from the master list for which they are entitled to bid.
Potential bidders and brokers, however, who have not joined into the auction or offering process, such as those who have not formally executed a Reseller Master Agreement (“RSA”), are not able to view available goods information as a “guest” due to the restrictions of the system described in the related application. Therefore, there is a need in the art for these potential bidders to visit the online offering system or auction system to experience the capabilities of the system in how it functions with limited capabilities as a “guest” user.
In one possible embodiment, a guest bidder may be allowed to view a set of hypothetical information and products for availability. However, this is less desirable than allowing the user to view actually available products because the set of hypothetical available items may or may not be relevant to the items which the bidder would like to purchase. For example, a hypothetical set of items to be viewed by a potential bidder may include computers and memory. But, the potential bidder may be more interested in purchasing printers and hard disk drives. So, to use hypothetical data sets would mean to either create multiple data sets so that the examples given to the guest bidders are more relevant, or to accept the short comings of the hypothetical data sets approach.
Another approach to solving this problem of allowing potential bidders to participate or experience the auction functions is the method provided by eBay[TM]. eBay allows a potential user to browse any and all available items, seeing both the listed bids and posted prices. However, there is no restriction as to the information that can be viewed according to the categories, regions, or themes of the offered items, and as such a potential bidder may see any and all of the available items. This may be undesirable both from the guest's perspective and the online offering system operator's perspective.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a system and method which provides for delivery of authorized or entitled information regarding available items for a potential or guest bidder. This system preferably should provide the ability to establish a bidder profile which determines which available products are entitled to be viewed by the guest bidder. Then, upon visiting the online offering or auction system, the guest bidder would be allowed to see only product information for which he is entitled, and he would be prevented from actually taking part in the offering or auction process such as placing a bid.